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The 2025 film War of the Worlds is a science fiction thriller that tries a fresh take on the classic story by H.G. Wells, originally published in 1898.

This new version is directed by Rich Lee, with a screenplay by Kenneth A. Golde and Marc Hyman, and stars Ice Cube alongside Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, and others. The movie was released by Universal Pictures on Amazon Prime Video on July 30, 2025, but it quickly ran into major problems with critics and audiences.

The story follows Will Radford, played by Ice Cube, a Department of Homeland Security officer who works on a surveillance program monitoring people worldwide. While helping the FBI track down a hacker named “Disruptor,” meteors start hitting Earth, and huge alien machines emerge, attacking humans. Radford teams up with a NASA friend to figure out that the planet is under an alien invasion.

What makes this version different is that the...

War of the Worlds is a 2025 science fiction thriller that tries a new approach by telling its story entirely through screens and digital devices. The movie is based on H.G. Wells’s famous 1898 novel The War of the Worlds. Directed by Rich Lee, with a screenplay by Kenneth A. Golde and Marc Hyman, it stars Ice Cube, Eva Longoria, Clark Gregg, Andrea Savage, and others.

The film was released by Universal Pictures on Amazon Prime Video on July 30, 2025. Unfortunately, it was not well-received. The movie currently has a 0% approval rating from critics based on 10 reviews and only a 12% approval rating from audiences, based on over 250 ratings. While the number of critic reviews is small, it doesn’t look like the scores will improve much as more opinions come in.

Via Rotten Tomatoes

The story follows Will Radford, a Department of Homeland Security officer who works with a government surveillance program...

Star Trek: Discovery made a mistake with its season one version of the Klingons. That's no big secret. Then the writers/producers fixed it and moved on. No television series gets everything right. There are still viewers very unhappy at the way Lost ended. But there are ups and down in the industry, and we, as fans, can't always get what we want. We can make our voices heard, but that doesn't mean the producers will change their minds.

Discovery didn't earn the love of all Star Trek fans, but it did have its devoted followers. And most of those same followers are also fans of the Trek series that came before. We watched Discovery, seeing it as a different form of Star Trek, not as a series that was trying to oust what was before like Giant Freakin' Robot's Joshua Tyler wrote. Changes were made, and new things were introduced,...

Top End Wedding was a rom-com road trip that ended with the nuptials of Lauren and Ned. The series follow-up to the hit Australian movie picks up the couple’s story as they unexpectedly become parents.

“I thought there was more to Lauren and Ned, we only saw them within the very few stressful days leading up to their wedding,” says Miranda Tapsell who plays Lauren and co-wrote the movie and series with Joshua Tyler. “Josh and I always entertained the idea of what happens after happily ever after?”

It turns out what happens is parenthood. The couple assume parental duties for Taya (Gladys-May Kelly), aka the Bub of the title. Her mother, Lauren’s cousin, has died unexpectedly.

Lauren, a dynamic Indigenous lawyer ticking off life goals and Ned, her British husband, move back to the Top End (where the outback meets the tropics) to raise Bub. As they...

Amazon Prime Video Anz has released first-look images of Top End Bub, the sequel series to Top End Wedding, Wayne Blair’s 2019 road movie that proved to be a big hit in Australia for Universal Pictures.

The eight-part series is created, executive produced and written by Miranda Tapsell and Joshua Tyler and produced by Goalpost Pictures, and follows on from the events of Top End Wedding. Tapsell also plays Indigenous lawyer Lauren, one of the stars of the franchise.

When we last saw Lauren in Top End Wedding, she had married her British boyfriend Ned (Gwilym Lee) in her hometown of Darwin, despite some hiccups and familial drama along the way. Top End Bub sees Lauren and Ned head back up north when they discover that Lauren’s eight-year-old niece Bub has been orphaned. The couple decide to leave behind their life of comfort down south to look out for Bub,...

The "Lone Wolf and Cub" formula has really taken over pop culture of late. It makes sense enough: the premise of writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima's original '70s manga -- a wandering loner becomes the caretaker of an extraordinary youngster -- is endlessly malleable. It can just as easily work in a comparatively realistic future where society has collapsed ("The Last of Us") as it can in a fantasy world completely removed from our own ("The Witcher") or even long ago in a galaxy far, far away ("The Mandalorian").

Director Gareth Edward's 2023 sci-fi film "The Creator" transposes that template onto the latter half of the 21st century, where a war between humanity and AI robots rages on 15 years after the nuclear destruction of Los Angeles. Edwards heavily evokes the iconography of Vietnam War cinema for the movie's depiction of New Asia, an amalgamation of several Asian...

Filming Underway On New Alan Partridge BBC Series

Filming is underway on new Alan Partridge mockumentary And Did Those Feet. Deadline revealed the BBC series several months back and cameras have rolled on the latest Steve Coogan conception. The mockumentary follows the beloved comedy creation settling into life back in his Norfolk home after a year working in Saudi Arabia, but the adjustment has left him with a deep sense of unease. Over six episodes he will unpack what is missing in his life, explore why the nation is in such a funk and find out what it might take to keep a person funk-free. “This look into the state of the nation (and Alan’s own psyche) through a unique lens – that of Alan Partridge – promises to further bolster the already iconic repertoire of the most legendary comedy character in the UK,” said BBC comedy boss Jon Petrie. Coogan...

Their first on-screen romance came in 2019 feature Top End Wedding, and now Miranda Tapsell and Gwilym Lee are getting in the loving mood for a Prime Video Australia series.

The pair are reprising their roles from the local box office hit in Top End Bub, with Tapsell and Top End Wedding co-writer Joshua Tyler penning the scripts. Christian van Vuuren and Shari Sebbens are directing.

Top End Bub will revisit Lauren (Tapsell), a dynamic Indigenous lawyer ticking off life goals in Adelaide, and her baker husband Ned (Lee), who abandon city life for the Top End (where the outback meets the tropics) to raise Lauren’s recently-orphaned eight-year-old niece.

While Lauren and Ned juggle the responsibility of becoming unexpected parents and try to keep their marriage together, Lauren must come to terms with her responsibilities within her culture, as she transforms from an individualist to the linchpin of her family,...

(L – R): AiF executive director Peter Ritchie, 2019 Regional Screen In La Program recipient Joshua Tyler, Australian Consul General La Chelsey Martin, AiF chair Simonne Overend and Screenworks CEO Ken Crouch.

The second iteration of Screenworks and Australians In Film (AiF)’s Regional Screen in La Program will take the form of an internship with Animal Logic Entertainment (Ale), offering upcoming or recent grads from regional Australia an opportunity to work out of the company’s La office.

AiF have run internship programs with Ale for the past five years and recipients have gone onto careers in the Australian and international screen industries, including Melanie Jayne (HBO), Sleena Wilson (Black Bear Pictures) and Lauren Brown (Ludo Studio).

The internship will run for two months in 2020 and cover all aspects of international feature film development, acquisitions, packaging and production. The successful recipient will work with both Ale and its subsidiary live-action production company,...

Miranda Tapsell and Joshua Tyler. (Photo: John Platt)

Top End Wedding co-writer Joshua Tyler is the inaugural recipient of Screenworks and Australians in Film’s Regional Screen in La Scholarship Program.

Tyler, who lives in Kyneton in country Victoria, will undertake a four-week residency at AiF’s Raleigh Studios-based incubator, Charlie’s; receive personalised sessions with industry consultants, and be introduced to Hollywood executives and creatives while in the Us.

“It’s fantastic to announce Joshua Tyler as the inaugural recipient of our new Regional Screen in La Scholarship Program,” said Screenworks’ CEO Ken Crouch, who noted the high standard of applications received.

“Joshua has already achieved amazing early-career success across multiple story-telling platforms including Top End Wedding, which has recently had its world premiere at the prestigious 2019 Sundance Film Festival and shows strong potential to be a significant Australian talent.

“Our independent assessment panel and judges agreed that Joshua...

The “top end” in “Top End Wedding” refers to the remote Northern Territory of Down Under, where things are done a little differently from what its young townies from bottom-end Adelaide are used to. For all its vibrant indigenous details, however, almost everything else about Wayne Blair’s amiable second feature adheres to universal wedding-comedy formula. The story of an interracial couple encountering the bride-to-be’s estranged Aboriginal roots as they plan a shambolic last-minute wedding, “Top End Wedding” strains for broad farce in its tonally yo-yoing first half, before relaxing into a gentler, more poignant tale of familial bonding as the forestalled but inevitable nuptials approach.

Less snappy and less consistent than Blair’s similarly cheery, culture-crossing domestic smash “The Sapphires,” his latest is unlikely to match that film’s success locally or internationally. Still, it’s easy, attractive comfort viewing that the Northern Territory tourist bureau may as...

‘Top End Wedding’

Wayne Blair’s Top End Wedding has been hailed by reviewers at the Sundance Film Festival as a charming and funny cross-cultural romantic comedy which deals with love and family and second chances.

Produced by Goalpost Pictures’ Rosemary Blight and Kylie du Fresne and Kojo’s Kate Croser, the film co-written by Miranda Tapsell and Joshua Tyler was also praised for its depiction of Indigenous Australians and culture.

Tapsell plays Sydney lawyer Lauren, who is engaged to fellow lawyer Lee (Gwilym Lee). Their wedding plans are disrupted when Lauren’s mother Daffy (Ursula Yovich) walks out on her husband Trevor (Huw Higginson), leaving a cryptic note and her mobile phone. They have 10 days to find her and to pull off their wedding amid the chaos.

Universal will launch the film in Australia on May 2 after taking over eOne’s theatrical marketing and distribution in April. Films Boutique is handling international sales.

Berlin-based Films Boutique has acquired international sales rights to Wayne Blair’s “Tod End Wedding” and Jacek Borcuch’s “Dolce Fine Giornata,” which will have their world premieres at the Sundance Film Festival.

Set to play in the premieres section, “Top End Wedding” marks Blair’s first Australian feature film since his critically acclaimed period musical “The Sapphires” which opened out of competition at Cannes in 2012.

The film follows an engaged couple who embark on a road trip across Australia to find the future bride’s mother who disappeared somewhere in the remote far north of the country days before their planned dream wedding.

“Top End Wedding” reunites Blair with Miranda Tapsell and Shari Sebbens, who starred in “The Sapphires.” They star opposite Gwilym Lee (Bohemian Rhapsody), Kerry Fox (“Cloudstreet”), Huw Higginson (“Home and Away”), Ursula Yovich (“The Code”) and Joshua Tyler (“Plonk”).

“It’s a great wedding comedy boasting...

Plonk, a satirical look at the trials and tribulations of making a serious wine show, screened on Eleven last year after premiering on YouTube.

Now there.s a second series of six-half episodes which will premiere on Svod service Stan in June.

Produced by One Stone Pictures and ITV Studios Australia, the comedy stars The Chaser.s Chris Taylor, Joshua Tyler and creator/co-executive producer Nathan Earl.

Shot in Adelaide, the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale, Clare Valley, Coonawarra and the Adelaide Hills, the sequel picks up 12 months after the cancellation of the fictitious Plonk program at the end of season one.

There will be cameos from foodie Maggie Beer, sommelier Matt Skinner, comedian Greg Fleet and Sa Premier Jay Weatherill.

Screen Australia, the South Australian Tourism Commission and the South Australian Film Corporation are supporting the production.

Graeme Mason, Screen Australia CEO, said: .We.re proud to support Nathan and...

Bringing an end to the Ouroboros arguments as to I’m Still Here’s veracity, director and co-writer Casey Affleck confessed to the NY Times, “Virtually none of it was real.”

I was perplexed about the timing of this announcement, especially because Affleck pleads, “I never intended to trick anybody…The idea of a quote, hoax, unquote, never entered my mind.”

Really?

Either Affleck‘s scrambling or he’s the only one who hasn’t been watching the press coverage of the supposed downward spiral of his brother-in-law, Joaquin Phoenix, over the past two years. Since he made a mockumentary about the events – faking everything down to the opening shots of the Phoenix children at play – I think he’s trying to save his own reputation as many critics, believing it was real, condemned Affleck as horrid human being who could sit back and document the descent of a loved one into madness.

The Alamo Guide

for December 10th, 2009 If you’re at the S. Lamar theater this weekend, and you see a bunch of groggy ass, smelly, crazy-looking people wandering out of the theater around noon on Sunday, don’t worry. They won’t hurt you, they will have just sat through a full 24 hours plus of movies and they’ll be in desperate need of sleep. I’ll be one of them. It’ll be awesomely exhausting! Aside from that, if you got tickets already (if not, toooo bad), you can see the folks from Broken Lizard with their newest film The Slammin’ Salmon, but the most important thing that you should do is Go See Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans!!! Yes, the name is long, and the trailer makes it look kind of silly, but the hype over at Alamo Headquarters is ridiculous and the few people in...